Samsung Galaxy A8s Said to Ditch 3.5mm Headphone Jack, US FCC Listing Confirms Infinity-O Display

Samsung Galaxy A8s is now speculated to debut without a 3.5mm headphone jack. If true, the Galaxy A8s would debut as the first Galaxy smartphone to have the absence of a 3.5mm headphone jack that left the Apple iPhone family a long time back and was recently ditched by smartphone vendors such as HTC and OnePlus. Separately, a US FCC listing has apparently confirmed that the Galaxy A8s will come with a display hole, as formally teased by Samsung last month.

A Chinese tipster who reveals unannounced developments using pseudonym MMDDJ_ on Twitter suggested that Samsung would bring the Galaxy A8s without a 3.5mm headphone jack. While the South Korean company hasn't revealed any formal details around the presence or absence of the audio interface on its new smartphone, if the speculation comes true, the Galaxy A8s will be the first Samsung model to come with the absence of a 3.5mm headphone jack. The Galaxy S10 is also likely to follow the footsteps of the Galaxy A8s and will come without a traditional audio jack.

Companies such as HTC and OnePlus recently ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack to favour a digital-to-analogue (DAC) converter to deliver a premium audio experience. Also, to recall, Apple abandoned the traditional audio connectivity method by removing the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 back in 2016.

Alongside the speculation around the absence of the 3.5mm headphone jack, documentation available on the US FCC website confirms the presence of a display hole on the Galaxy A8s. The documentation features the Galaxy A8s as SM-G8870 and includes one of the screenshots of the handset that shows a room for the hole that is likely to be meant for the frontal camera sensor. The area in question is featured on the top-left corner of the screen, as spotted by GalaxyClub. Also, the listed screenshot shows that the smartphone has a 19.5:9 aspect ratio.

Photo Credit: FCC

Importantly, it is unclear whether the Galaxy A8s will have a notch at the top-left corner or simply a display hole, as teased by Samsung last month. Previous reports, however, claimed that the new smartphone will come with an Infinity-O type display that the company showcased at its annual developer conference earlier this month. The new display design was previewed with a hole at the top-centre.

Samsung Galaxy A8s specifications (rumoured)

The Samsung Galaxy A8s is rumoured to debut with a 6.39-inch display with a full-HD+ resolution. It is also said to have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 SoC, paired with 6GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 128GB internal storage that is expandable via microSD card (up to 512GB). Further, the handset is speculated to come with a 3,400mAh battery and have a USB Type-C port.